Understanding exercise and hip dysplasia

There is a lot of advice out there about when puppies should be permitted to jump, or run with owners, or begin training for certain activities. All of this advice stems from the idea that hip dysplasia, a common and debilitating joint disease in dogs, can be prevented or caused by our actions.

None of this is true. Hip dysplasia is the mis-growth (dysplasia = dys; wrong; plasia: molding (or in modern language, growth)) of the hip joint resulting in the femoral head (a rounded bone joint at the top of the thigh) not fitting tightly in its socket.

Exercise can neither cause nor prevent this. The disease in congenital - meaning inherited.

A puppy with normal hips can play and jump and do whatever and be fine - just as children with normal joints can play and jump and even do organized sports from a very young age and be fine. A dog with hip dysplasia, as it grows and exercises, because of the laxity of the joint, will be constantly stretching the ligaments that attach the pelvis to the femur, this will exacerbate the preexisting disease and cause lameness.

Exercise did not cause the disease; it, in combination with growth, caused the symptoms of the existing disease.

This is a huge distinction, and one that owners of puppies need to be made aware of. All of the dos and don'ts of exercise in puppies are predicated on this fallacy.

The next fallacy is that we need to wait until the dog gets older to treat hip dysplasia or that hip dysplasia is inevitable. Because hip dysplasia is a disease of growth, fixing it can be done as puppies grow. In fact it is cheaper, and better for the puppy to fix the disease before movement, weight, and age take their toll on the joints, causing osteoarthritis.

A puppy at 10-16 weeks can be sedated by a qualified veterinarian, palpated for hip laxity, and radiographed utilizing the PennHIP method, this will produce a solid understanding of that puppy's future chances of disease. This method is far superior to the current OFA standard (Adams, Dueland, et al JAAHA 1998)

If a puppy is found to have hip dysplasia, a surgeon can stop the growth of certain parts of the pelvis to change the pelvic shape; this allows better contact with the femoral head. The surgery goes by the lengthy and unhelpful name of Juvenile Pubic Symphysiodesis (JPS). This surgery, unlike not allowing puppies to jump until they are a year old, can actually halt hip dysplasia from occurring in the first place. This surgery (in conjunction with full hip replacement) is considered to be the most effective surgical treatment for hip dysplasia*.  A randomized trial of the method showed that 75% of treated dogs showed no signs of degenerative joint disease two years post op. **

Waiting until the dog is older and showing symptoms signs the dog up for a lifetime of pain, disability, drugs, blood tests (to make sure the pain killers aren't destroying the liver and kidneys) and impaired function. Stopping the disease early involves foresight, a veterinarian able and willing to recommend early diagnosis and intervention, and an owner willing to invest today to save the dog's health and their money in the long run.

No one solution fits all cases, of course, Some dogs are born with such congenitally abnormal hips that they lack a joint altogether. These dogs, while likely to benefit from the same early intervention, will likely never have normal hips, and may need more proactive surgery to hopefully avoid a life of reactive pain medication and impaired function.

Like everything else you read on the internet, please take this with a grain of salt. Check the resources provided here, and speak with your own veterinarian. But, be aware, that as I have grown older, I have noticed that more and more veterinarians seem to be falling further and further behind on the latest research. Demand that your veterinarian be up to date on recommendations. Demand that they earn those higher and higher fees that we all pay with better and more up to date information and research. It's the least that we can do for our dogs' futures.

*  Bergh and Budsberg, Veterinary Surgery, 2014


** Patricelli, A. J., Dueland, R. T., Adams, W. M., Fialkowski, J. P., Linn, K. A. and Nordheim, E. V. (2002), Juvenile Pubic Symphysiodesis in Dysplastic Puppies at 15 and 20 Weeks of Age. Veterinary Surgery, 31: 435–444. doi: 10.1053/jvet.2002.34766


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Tools

Tools are what connect us to an animal we are training. A collar, a leash, a halter and a bridle are all tools. Treats are tools. All tools communicate. How harshly they communicate depends on the tool and the handler. The discussion of tools is often tinged with the queasy whiff of religion. People 'believe' or 'don't believe' in this or that type of tool.

Tools can be largely neutral, a flat collar or a halter on a horse are perfect examples. Yes, we can use them to guide an animal, and to correct errors, but they don't have a lot of teeth, and a determined dog or horse will easily brush these tools aside to do what they please.

The harsher the tool the more vehement becomes the rhetoric concerning it.

From my horsey past I can say that I developed a strict set of rules about the use of tools, and always used the least aggressive method to produce my results. I was an excellent trainer who usually had plenty of time, so I had no issues living in my judgmental bubble of superiority.

Then a client bought a beast of a horse. This thing was a tank. Big, bullish and with just enough training to be dangerous. She bought it for her husband who had a bad back. This horse could not pull on him lest he end up in the hospital. They did not have infinite resources of time and money and I had to make this thing somehow safe for this man in less than 30 days.

I started him like I started thoroughbreds off the track and quickly learned that this method was doomed to failure. He wanted to run through me. He was a moose and a buffoon, and remedial work to put the kind of equipment on him that I wanted was certainly going to take far longer than 30 days!

So, do I tell the new owners to get a more appropriate horse? Yes. Does it work? No. Do I tell them it will certainly take more than 30 days? Yes. They spent all their money on the horse.

Do I throw in the towel and break all of my rules and put this horse in a harsher bit than I would like? Yes. Absolutely. Because otherwise he will injure his owner. I chose what I considered the lesser of evils. I could have refused to train the horse, but who does that help? The horse would either sit in a barn until sent down the road, or the owner would have been injured, or they would have found a different trainer who perhaps would have used even harsher equipment.  In what way would the horse have benefitted from my stand for purity?

I think that it is wonderful that there are skilled trainers able to get amazing results with the most neutral tools available. I am glad that there are owners willing to provide these trainers with the time to use these skills to help their animals.

I am not such a purist (though in retrospect I may have once been) as to believe that any trainer lacking these skills should not be training. I do believe that we all owe it to our pets to use kindest tools necessary to achieve the desired results in the time allotted.

Lastly, I want to point out that in the story above, the main point was that had I not resorted to tougher equipment than I felt strictly comfortable using, the animal would have injured someone. In no way am I implying that I would have used harsher equipment in the face of training failures on my part, on a fearful animal, or to speed along training for any other reason. Also, when all is said and done, I still trained the horse using far less bit (kinder mouthpiece) than most people use on their everyday horses, and with less equipment than many professionals slap onto horses willy nilly and daily.

I hope that this helps to illustrate a point. In the right hands, most tools are just that. They form a line of communication. A well-trained dog will no more fear a prong collar than a flat collar if the uses of both are clear to the dog. In a perfect world, perhaps no dog would ever wear a prong collar. In a perfect world no trainer would reach for one first. But until we live in such a world, we need to understand that the religion of tool usage can be as laced with arrogance, judgement, fanaticism, and superiority as any other religion, and as such we should divest ourselves as much as possible from such emotion.  A tool is always neutral; it is the user who turns it into something else.

Please join the conversation on Facebook. Also, you may have noticed the PayPal button on the top right of the page. I have tried over the years to use ad revenue to pay for my blogs, and have failed, so, I am trying a radical new idea. No more ads. If you like what you read, and think it is worth it, drop me a few bucks now and again - if not, no worries - I hope you come back and read us regardless. 

Dog Training vs Horse Training

I have now been training dogs professionally for a little over a year. I trained horses professionally for 12 years. I have found dog owners to be entirely unlike horse owners in how they approach training as well in how they approach their own responsibilities as animal owners.

Here is a brief outline of the differences that I have found in the general lay-owner for each species.

1. The learning process.

Horses have little innate need to be trained. No one will ever state that an untrained horse is in some way missing out. Horses have no intrinsic need to please their owners. No one ever asked me how to motivate their horse to learn. Horse owners train horses and horses learn whether they wish to or not.

An interesting counterpoint to this is that in spite of a dog's innate desire to please, and overall better mental health when they are trained - horse owners are far more likely to believe that training their animal is absolutely mandatory. Dog owners are much more willing to put up with issues stemming from an untrained dog.

Dogs actually must have some level of training both to live within the family structure and to fulfill intrinsic psycho-social needs - horses can get by with only basic handling skills.

Few horse owners would attempt to DIY train their horse - almost all dog owners will.

2. Problem behaviors:

Almost all horse owners will see their horse's problem behaviors as a training issue - whether they lay the blame at their horse's feet or their own, behavior is related to training.

Dog owners see many problem behaviors as intrinsic to the dog and therefore fixed, or due to boredom.

Horse owners will try to train their way past problem behaviors. Do owners will try to buy toys, special collars, harnesses or decorate the house in puppy pads in an effort to address problem behaviors.

3: Training philosophy:

Horse owners have a saying, "you are always training", which they use to illustrate the need to be endlessly vigilant about how they interact with their horse. They also understand training to be a long term - usually many months, and in most cases many years to decades - activity. Horses are rarely 'trained', they tend to always be 'in training'.

Many horses start training after a previous career has ended - an ex-barrel horse becomes a kid's 4-H mount, an ex-racehorse starts again as a jumper, an ex-trotter starts life anew as a police horse.

Dog owners think that training is a fixed experience. They 'train' for x number of minutes a day. It is also a very short-term exercise. Most dogs are 'trained' in a few weeks. Many people believe that if their dog reaches a certain age and doesn't know something she never will.

Most people train puppies and that's all. Adult dogs either know it all, or are incapable of learning more.

Training errors:

Communication with an animal can be frustrating for people and in the case of both dog and equine owners, often the fault for misunderstanding is placed on the animal instead of on the human.

In the case of horses, owners will resort to 'louder' hands and more aggressive cueing. They may move to different mechanical means to 'fix' what they have failed to train, compounding errors and needlessly causing suffering.

Dog owners over use their voice. Some 'chatter' at their dogs or 'explain', others repeat cues or get louder. When these fail, they too move to equipment to solve the problem, this leads to the same needless suffering that it does in horses.

Interestingly, horsemen are more educated about the tools that they use than dog owners. A horse owner, switching out a plain snaffle for a double-twisted-wire to put more 'brakes ' on their horse, knows that the reason that this may work is that the new bit hurts more.

Dog owners believe nothing of the sort, they will change to a harness or collar designed to stop pulling and will never ask how this miracle gets done.

Training styles:

Horse owners tend to see training as methodical. Halter training is done from birth, a lot of thought is put into method and style of training and it begins as soon as it can. Then comes longing and long-lining and then slowly at year two or three under saddle work.

Dog owners tend to slap a collar on the dog and expect the dog to 'get it'. Owners rarely think of how the environment affects their dog, and are shocked when their dogs make a hash of walking on a leash in a new environment.

As stated above, no horse owner wonders how to motivate a horse to learn. This is partly because training in horses is a one-way contract; the trainer trains, the horse absorbs. The horse does not get a say in how he feels about training. A good trainer will adjust to learning style and speed as well as physical limitations, but will never expect the horse to eagerly engage in the learning process. That is not to say that horses may not enjoy being trained, or that some horses do not actively participate in their training, it is merely to observe that neither of these is a prerequisite.

Dogs are expected to engage in the process. Partly because it makes training easier for us, and partly because we feel better as trainers if we see that the dog too gets something from the interaction. Dogs who are 'shut down', 'dull' or 'flat' are more difficult to train than dogs who are eager and involved. We expect the dog to engage in the process, and if they do not they are generally considered to be at fault.

Obviously these are generalizations, and they are based on the experiences of one person, but overall it appears that the general populations of people owning these two species both expect their animals to perform certain actions reliably; horse people have largely seen the method to attain this as training, whereas it appears that many dog owners think that these expectations can be achieved through osmosis.

Bad Dog!

That's what my husband said when he saw this:

(In case you can't tell what you're looking at, that black thing at their feet is the chewed up corpse of an ATV seat - seat number three, in fact (and don't think the dog on the left (Dice) looks guilty, he always looks like that when asked to do anything. He smooshes his ears and gets all happy and silly - it just photographs as guilt.))

But you can't be a bad dog if you don't know that you are doing something wrong, and of course, there's the problem.

I had failed this dog.

I work hard to ensure that my dogs never make mistakes inside the house. They are never permitted even a second without supervision until I have instilled every house rule to them over and over again, and they have proven to me time and again that they can be entrusted to make only good decisions. I watch them likes hawks.

And my dogs are fantastic inside.

Outside is a different matter.

Outside there is almost nothing that they can destroy, so they destroy nothing; there are few places in my yard where they can dig that would bother me, so they don't dig inappropriately. There are endless sticks to chew and lizards to chase, so they never get bored and chew or chase things that they should not. 

Until they do. Until a mouse runs into an ATV and the dog chases it there and tries to get it out by any means necessary. Until that same dog discovers that it isn't one mouse, but mice, and they are hiding in all the ATVs and in the engine compartment of my car and my truck. Until then.

Then they, in this case, he, is a bad dog.

Of course this destruction cannot continue. A problem that begins explosively within a period of several weeks and progresses to this level cannot be ignored.

So, what to do?

This is how dogs end up homeless.

That is the easy, and to some, sensible, solution. There are likely thousands of homes where a dog like this will not ever again have the opportunity to destroy property to capture rodents; he is well-trained, loving, beautiful, and friendly. He would find a home, a normal home where there is no opportunity to chase rodents into cars.

But, is it fair for the dog to have to deal with the disruption and confusion of a new home when it is I and not he who has failed? When it is I who am the bad owner, not he who is the bad dog?  After all, he doesn't know that his actions are criminal.

But, and this is an important but, is it fair to have to live with a dog that destroys hundreds of dollars of ATV seats in the space of a few days? Is it fair that he has done thousands of dollars of damage to two vehicles, one brand new? 

Whenever we look at a dog's behavior, as much as we want to place all of the blame on the owners (which, in most cases is accurate) we also have to admit that there are behaviors that many people would deem inappropriate enough that they cannot continue to have it at all. That's where we are with this dog. There can be no more destroyed vehicles, no more chewed up seats. We have reached the land of zero tolerance.

And, of course, none of this took place when we were watching, so as furious as my husband is at the dog, we have no recourse. Unlike a child we cannot explain to him what he is being punished for and ground him for eternity or take away his internet. The deed was done, and adding to the frustration is the fact that there will never be justice. The dog will never 'pay' for his criminal behavior.

So, the only way to go is forward. I immediately begin to rack my brain for solutions. Solutions that will serve to help the dog understand that murdering vehicles to get to rodents is illegal, while ensuring that in the interim he doesn't cause still more mayhem. It takes work, and now, it takes supervision outside as well as in. It means that his outdoor life is now as circumscribed as his indoor life. It means working on impulse control, and more training, and keeping him away from the vehicles for as long as it takes. And it will take a long time.

Most of all it will take work, diligence, and effort. There can be no quick fix for this. I cannot stint on the commitment to both my vehicles' resale value, and my dog's ability to continue living here. Both are important. I am not one of those people who is capable of living with any behavior a dog may throw at me, there are absolutely situations that I would find untenable - this is actually quite close - but since his actions threaten no lives (except - presumably - mice), I am willing to deal with the changes necessary to help this dog succeed at my house.

I bring this whole thing up to illustrate several points: 1) If we don't teach the dog that something is wrong, then it is ok. 2) If we do not see something happen, then there is no 'explaining' the situation to the dog and punishing the dog retroactively. 3) Depending on the act, this can cause extreme anger and frustration in the human, and it will take effort to keep that from spilling over into the relationship with the dog. 4) Complex behaviors, especially those we were unable to nip in the bud, or we have a low probability of witnessing in person (such as a mouse sprinting into the guts of an ATV with a dog in hot pursuit) are time consuming to solve. 5) no one has to live with a behavior they do not like, but the alternative is not neutral to the dog. Some dogs take disruption and rehoming in stride, believing all strangers are their best friends - these dogs rehome well. Sensitive, wary, and weird dogs, like Dice, do not rehome well - it took me about 6 months of daily work to connect with this dog. 6) working through issues takes time, and work, and commitment, and failure to do so will end in failure and frustration.

Cody thought the ATV seat on the floor was a piece of agility equipment and kept climbing onto it looking for a treat.

The first six weeks

My classes run one hour a week for six weeks. My beginner class is usually filled with dogs who were recently adopted or whose behavior has now become annoying. My expectation for pet owners is that they will train their dogs a minimum of 15 minutes a day for the duration of the class. That means, in a perfect world, dogs will have received 12 hours of training in those six weeks (I'm allocating half an hour of training for my one hour class as well, some have more talking some less.)

Twelve hours. In those twelve hours dogs will learn some neat 'tricks', such as 'sit', 'watch me', 'down', and 'spin'. They will also begin to form the basis for the concept of walking on a loose leash (some dogs do this better than others, and some owners are better than others at training it). We will work on 'fixing' common problems: pulling, barking at strange people and dogs, lunging at other dogs, house breaking issues, recall issues, and the like.

Mostly, though we will set the dogs up to learn. Most dogs come into my beginning class with nearly no skills. They have never been asked to do anything.

Dogs want to please us, and so training, where the dog understands that something is expected of it, but doesn't know what that something is, can be stressful to dogs and owners. Many dogs come to class largely divorced from the actions of their owners. They live fairly independently of the person on the other end of the leash, and have never seen that person as terribly relevant outside of fulfilling basic animal functions such as companionship, food, water and shelter.

The first six weeks teaches the dog that his owner is relevant, and pleasing his owner, even if he is uncertain how at first, has tremendous rewards. The first six weeks sets the dog up to understand that learning is fun, that it is worth seeking out, and that mistakes are ok. It allows the dog to try new things, it opens up their personality, it lets them understand the basic structure of their lives, in many cases that understanding brings confidence and comfort.

Yes, six weeks is a very brief time. Six weeks will do little by way of producing cool tricks to show family and friends, but those first six weeks opens the door to a world of possibilities, and nothing pleases me more than watching the dogs 'get it' for the first time, knowing that everything to follow will be that much easier for them.

In the weeds

Way back at the beginning of my career as a horse trainer, I worked at a jumper barn and we had this wonderful client who had a gelding (Monterey) that he just doted on. Monterey was a huge beast of a horse, well over 17 hands with feet like dinner plates. He could jump the moon. Monterey’s dad paid more for this one horse than I would make that year, or most of the years following. He was that kind of horse.

When the trainer who worked with Monterey and his owner first told me about them, she said that dad didn’t care about how to ride, he just wanted to jump big fences.

The combination wasn’t always pretty, but Monterey was never to blame, and when things came together it looked like everyone in the ring, not just the horse, knew what they were doing.

I am not like Monterey’s dad. I need to know everything. I need to get down into the weeds regarding every aspect of my horse, and every one of the horses I trained over the years. I learned to watch horses and let them tell me what their future held, where they would succeed and where they would struggle. I could place riders or myself on these horses and through years of endless study and observation create a team of two species that moved like one. I allowed my students to fail and taught them to let their horses make mistakes. Everyone grew together this way through mutual respect and forgiveness. Eventually beauty would flow through the heart of the horse and through the hands of my students and anyone watching would see what it was and feel elation.

Everyone knows what a good team looks like, regardless of species. We know it when we see it.

I am a geek. I am a geek about everything I care about. I not only knew the name and function of every piece of equipment that could conceivably be placed on a horse, but had also analyzed how that equipment affected movement, communication, and relaxation. I knew how every bit lay on the tongue, and knew that some bits sold as friendly were everything but and that if I put my tongue on the place where steel hit copper on a bit I would feel a little electrical ‘zing’, no wonder the bit was sold as an aid to keep the horse’s mouth wet!! Yikes!

I’m now walking a different path than the one I knew so well, and I know frightfully little. I now find myself staring at simple tools people buy every day to teach their pets and find myself asking familiar questions: How does this device work, what makes it effective, what will keep it effective, who should use it and under what circumstances?

I want the answers. I don’t want opinions; I know how little value opinions carry. I want facts, whys and hows, and I want to get down into the weeds of every single tool, whether I will personally ever use it or not.

Training dogs is totally different than training horses. Horses have no intrinsic need to be trained, nor do they particularly care to please us. Dogs live for training, they are eager students, ready and wanting instruction, thrilled for the opportunity to please us.

As a beginning trainer, I feel that my fullest effort should be in preserving and shaping that eagerness and enthusiasm. Bringing it out in shy and worried dogs, while shaping it in more forward and eager dogs. Towards that end, I will study every nuance of the work of others; the science of behavior and canine movement. I will acquire videos, books, and hands on learning from those who have best preserved the joy of learning in their own dogs, then I will take it all home and point what I have learned at my own dogs, my shy ones, my high drive enthusiastic ones, and those in between. What works, I will keep and improve upon, what fails I will tuck away for further study.

In dog training, as in horse training, I have once more found myself down in the weeds, just where I love to be!

Don't Tell me you Rescued your Dog

You will never hear me say that I rescued any of my dogs. If you ask me how I got them I may tell you that I got them through a series of events, or tell you their story, but I will never tell you that I rescued them, for the very simple reason that I did not.

When I managed a veterinary hospital in a PetSmart, part of our mandate was to make nice to all of the rescue organizations that lurked the store’s hallways and bring in new adoptees for exams. I learned several things while I was doing this work: some rescue people are nuts, some rescue people are wonderful, some dogs are beyond rescue, and some dogs just need a helping hand. I also found out that the worst thing a client could say – especially when presented with a costly treatment plan was – “he’s a rescue.”

Amazingly, many people who told me this did it to excuse the next thing that they would do which was to deny their rescued pet necessary medical care. The way, I suspect that they saw things was that they had rescued the pet, and therefore the good was already done. No need, at this point, to pony up yet more money.

Now, of course this is anecdotal, and I, of all people, reject anecdotal evidence especially if it helps defend a preferred position. I have known thousands of clients through the years, and their thousands of rescued pets, and most of the pets were treated as well-loved family members. It was only if the words, “I rescued him” were spoken out loud would things go badly.

Those words were also used to justify unjustifiable aggression or fear from the dog. They were usually followed by “he was abused”, which is an excuse for the pet to be handicapped with a disabling emotional problem for the remainder of his life. I can assure you of two things: 1. Most abused dogs do not fear people and 2. Most fearful/aggressive dogs got that way not through abuse but from lack of proper socialization as puppies, and ongoing isolation by protective adopters who do not wish their scarred dogs to face the real world. It’s tragic and unfair.

But none of these are the reason I will never say that I rescued any of my dogs. Rescuing implies two things: risk to the rescuer and that the act is altruistic. Neither of these is true of the dogs I have. I have never jumped into a burning house and rescued a dog.  Every dog I have, I have wanted. Did I buy any from breeders? No, but that doesn't make me a rescuer, it just means I'm cheap. My dogs came through various sources and homes where they did not fit in for whatever reason.

I got one dog through rescue. In fact I fostered her for the rescue and simply fell for her, but I didn’t rescue her. I wanted her and she was available. There was no risk to me and my actions were not selfless.

Does this mean that I believe you have to jump into a frozen lake and save a drowning dog to rescue it? Of course not, and rescue organizations do step up and help out pets and gain nothing for themselves; they network and put in the miles and money, and they provide a wonderful service and they do rescue pets for people like me to adopt. But that is what I did, I adopted.

I adopted from a rescue, and from the Humane Society, and from people who got in over their heads with the wrong breed, or who were trying to do right but another dog in the house wasn’t having it, or from kindly people who found dogs in the desert and knew I was looking for a certain type of dog and gave me a call. But I did not rescue any of these dogs. Even the dog I got from a shelter I didn’t rescue. I adopted her as well. Had I not adopted her she likely would have found another home, had she not, she would have probably been put down. I adopted her and a different dog was put down in her place. I chose her.

Only with pets do we routinely, “rescue”, no one tells people that their adopted kid was rescued.  I understand that the word, “rescue” brings with it an emotional reward. People who are rescuers are good people, altruistic. The problem is that wanting a dog, searching out a dog and then purchasing a dog from a rescue – regardless of the dog’s back story – is not an act of charity. I’m sorry, but you are not a hero for adopting a dog from a rescue. You are a pet lover sure, and no doubt, a wonderful person, but you are not a hero.

Why, you ask, do I even give a shit what people say about how they got their dogs or cats, why should it matter? I did have to ask myself that, because I am passionate about the use of the word ‘rescue’ and I had to examine where that comes from.

I believe that there are several layers to my antipathy towards the word. First, rescuers are people in society whom we should hold up as examples to us all. These people are firefighters, police officers, strangers who do dash into burning buildings. The word has meaning and it should remain untainted by watering down to the point where buying a dog from the pound qualifies.

Second, it seems too often to be prefaced with, ‘but’ and used to justify failings in the dog’s personality. Often these failings are extremely detrimental to the dog’s ability to function in the real world. “But, he was rescued” creates a crutch that excuses the owner from ever asking the dog to live in the real world, both victimizing the dog for life and excusing their own failures as pet owners.

There are wonderful people who work in rescue, and they do rescue dogs, and for them the word has meaning, as they end up with little to show for it but depleted check books, chewed up furniture and the joy that comes from placing a dog in it’s forever home. It is a disservice to their efforts to equate writing a check or picking a dog up off the highway to the work that they do.

Did I get some of my dogs through rescue? Sure, but I didn’t rescue them, someone else did. I just wrote the check and made them a home; and that’s enough.

Confessions of a fake dog trainer

I recently made the leap to professional dog training. By recently, I mean about 4 months ago. If you are a Facebook friend, or even, in some cases, a family member, this is news, because I haven't exactly been shouting it from the roof tops.

Truth be told, I find my new job embarrassing. Not the dog training part. Well, actually, yes kinda, that part too.

Mostly it's the venue. See, I took a job as a dog trainer at (a big box store). That, for some reason, is the crux of the embarrassment, after all, what 40+ year old takes a job at a big box store?

I've run businesses for myself and others. I've been in management in one form or another for twenty plus years, and here I am, starting all over at a job that would've been cool when I was twenty, but I'm treating it like a dirty secret because I'm 40 (+).

I keep telling myself that this job isn't my real job. My real job is writing, and this dog training gig is just to keep me from trying to have conversations with houseplants, get me out of the house, introduce me to new challenges, etc...

That, is of course, horse shit. I needed the money that writing wasn't providing; I was sick and tired of the personalities and hours of the veterinary profession, and I wanted something new.

And now, shhhhhhh.... It's a secret!!

Some of this stems from the whiff of retail, a job I have never had. The other is that a big box dog trainer is not a real dog trainer.

I know real dog trainers (many of whom - again - know nothing of this dirty new career path I've chosen). I respect real dog trainers. I have worked with, mooched advice from, and generally lurked in the same circles with real dog trainers for the past 15 years or so. They all know more than I do.

So, there's that. I'm also a poser. Sure, I trained horses professionally for over a decade, and at that I really was qualified, and also very talented. Then I worked in veterinary hospitals for 15 years, speaking to clients about behavior, and learning the clues to avoid getting myself bit. But neither of those exactly qualifies me to train anyone's dog.

I know, intellectually that I am a passable dog trainer, and that because I study and bother others incessantly for advice, I will eventually be a good one. But in the interim, let's just keep this to ourselves, what do you say?

What's the story with purebred dogs?

I've been thinking a lot recently about the debate raging about purebred dogs. The debate, for those of you who have not been paying attention is largely between the rescue folks who tend to be anti-breeder and anti-purebred dog, and the dog breeder and working dog folks who think mutts are a horror story of genetic unknowns.

For the record, I come at this debate largely  from the perspective of the equine world, and I do stand firmly on the side of purebred horses. The reason is that horses, which must perform to have any value, are bred with certain characteristics in mind. A thoroughbred makes a terrible cutting horse, while a showy cart horse looks gorgeous but would be left standing on the race track. Mixing two types of horses, in most cases does nothing to help produce a better horse. Yes, there are exceptions, but the deal with crossing is that while you might think you're adding bottom (stamina) and height to that short coupled and elegant-moving Spanish horse, you might be getting a short, lanky flat-moving outcross - the worst of both worlds.

Having said that, I have also seen the horror show that breeding for the conformation ring begets; quarter horses built like cows, tottering on tiny diseased feet, Arabs with long weak loins that collapse under a rider's weight, are just two examples.

In horses, there is usually a counter current driving the show ring crowd back to sanity - because a horse is a very expensive 'pet', and failure to perform keeps the conformation folks from going completely off the rails. Compare that to the freak dogs that come out of the AKC's idea of beauty; unlike horses, dogs simply have to fail to die. That is not a very high bar.

Horses and dogs both suffer from over breeding, however, horses rarely land in shelters and look pitiful; they quietly go to auction and head down to Mexico. Both scenarios are terribly sad, and neither speaks well for us as humans, however, no one is raving in the streets that people need to adopt horses rather than breeding them.

The first thing we all have to face is that if we want to have dogs in the future, someone needs to breed them. Purebreds come with a host of known faults and genetic abnormalities, mutts provide owners with an element of surprise.

A valid argument could be made that the discussion shouldn't be about mixed-breed vs purebred, rather it should be between well-bred and poorly bred, with the outcome of the latter being a functional, sane, biddable dog with the least amount of genetic maladaptions. Perhaps breeders do gain something when they mix Anatolian shepherds to great Pyrenees, I have no idea, as long as the end result is a sound minded, sound moving, healthy animal with a purpose, then the pups will find homes, and more importantly, keep them.

Coming as I do, from the equine world, I have been able to watch different breed organizations (there is no overhanging AKC in the horse world) get it right, while others failed to help their breed remain true to its origins.

For many European bred warmblood horses, as well as some Spanish horses, the horse must pass a set of standardized tests to be admitted into the registry as breeding stock. If your Oldenberg stallion eats people, moves like a three legged donkey, and has toes that point at one another, you can breed him all you want, but his kids are not Oldenbergs.

I am actually a huge proponent of this system. Yes it means that your registry cannot admit one-million new animals a year, but it provides people buying your product (and yes, horses and dogs are products, no matter how much we may love them, they are part of the same system that produces Barbie and Dr. Pepper) can be reasonably certain that it isn't a steaming pile of very expensive horseshit.

The same cannot be said about the vast majority of dog breeds. For example the other day a gentleman introduced me to his brand new two-year old sway-backed pig-shaped atopic (skin disease) 'blue' pit bull, that he said was registered somewhere (pit bulls to my knowledge are still not a breed, rather they are a type) as something. He paid $600 for this walking vet bill!

Now, I know we cannot protect people from stupid, but if every other damn dog in the country wasn't 'AKC registered', we might be able to help people escape the more egregious levels of stupid.  'AKC registered' has no meaning. It does not speak to quality or health, it is simply a list of 'begats'. People say, 'my dog is registered', like it means something, and in a better world, it would.

And yes, the blue pig-dog still had two dangly balls to make more swaybacked bad-skinned, wrinkly-faced horror shows - yay.

Some people come down on 'conformation' as the issue, for example, the American Border Collie Association hates conformation, and if your dog gets an AKC conformation title it will be summarily booted from the ABCA - perhaps for border collies, sickle hocks, poor gait, and pigeon chests don't affect performance - perhaps border collies are magical, and do not need to have proper underlying structure to stay sound through long active lives. Talk about throwing the baby out with the bathwater!!

Form matters. This plus mind and other traits is why we have breeds to start with! Terriers who chase rats in barnyards need to be short. Greyhounds who chase mechanical rabbits need to be lanky with good structure to hold up under racing, retrievers need a long enough muzzle to retrieve.

What dogs do not need to perform these tasks is certain ear shapes, certain coat lengths (though shorter makes most sense for dogs performing outside in temperate places), and certain colors. So having a fluffy black and white border collie with just so tipped Lassie ears does not make her better at catching sheep, but pretending that form doesn't matter is foolish.

Unless you have a purpose in mind, you shouldn't breed, and that purpose should not be to make money off puppies. The goal of breeding any animal should be to produce a set of characteristics in the offspring that enables them to perform a function. I cannot see risking the chances of cross-out catastrophes in any mixed-breed experiment - maybe some are great, I just haven't seen it, and I have yet to see a cross breed that fulfills some task not already covered in existing breeds.

This brings us lastly to health. An argument can be made that mutts are healthier, and while it is true that certain issues are strongly correlated with certain bloodlines, breeding 'pure' does not necessarily produce genetic disasters - breeding poorly does. Lipizzaners are famous for the minuteness of their gene pool (six stallions at the start in the 1500s and a small herd of 250 that came through WWII). . Lipizzaners are not beset with genetic diseases.

This could be partly because genetic diseases were not permitted to enter the gene pool in the first place, and partly because many lipizzaner breeding programs very tightly controlled. Compare this to quarter horses, the largest registry in the US, and therefore, logically, one of the breeds most likely to suffer from poor and lazy breeding. Quarter horses have numerous genetic issues not found in the larger equine population. A whole disease in quarter horses persists in spite of the fact that it originated from a single over-used stallion.

This is what happens when people forget that the point of breeding is not to produce fifty out-crops for every decent animal, but rather to have a good, sound animal every time.

For breeders and other advocates of purebred dogs to prevail in this debate they must show why their breeds exist. They must produce dogs who can be pets and can perform (to say they're mutually exclusive is just as idiotic as stating that thoroughbred stallions shouldn't have manners - they should, and many do, so it can be done). For some dogs 'perform' may simply mean be able to be potty trained, walk on a leash and not eat people - a very tall order for some of our shorter breeds!

An ABCA border collie who is so high drive that she cannot function in a real home without going nuts is as huge a disservice to the breed as a beautiful AKC champion who won't herd sheep.